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THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

RESOLUTION No. 31/1999/QH10 OF DECEMBER 21,1999 OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON THE TASKS OF THE YEAR 2000

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Pursuant to Article 84 of the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam;

After examining the report of the Government, the reports of related agencies and the opinions of the National Assembly deputies,

RESOLVES:

To approve the report of the Government and the reports of related agencies on evaluating the implementation of the tasks of 1999 and the orientation of the tasks, targets and solutions for the year 2000.

The National Assembly lays emphasis on the following questions:

I. ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION IN 1999

Thanks to outstanding efforts of the entire people and all branches and levels, we have striven to fulfil and overfulfil nearly all the main targets of 1999 laid down by the National Assembly. Gross Domestic Product rose by around 5%. The value of agricultural production increased by 5.5%. Food production in paddy equivalent attained 33.8 million tons, the highest mark to date. The value of industrial production rose by 10.3%. Export value increased by 22%. Progress has been recorded in cultural and social domains. We have created jobs for 1.2 million laborers. The number of hungry and poor households has decreased. The people�s life has been stabilized. The elections to the People�s Councils at all levels have achieved good results. Our external relations have broadened. National defense and security has been well preserved.

Nevertheless, our country is still facing many difficulties and challenges. Natural disasters have occurred successively, drought early in the year and heavy floods at the year�s end in Central Vietnam. The economy still shows many defects and weaknesses, the growth rate continues to decrease, efficiency and competitiveness remain low. Consumption of products remains difficult and the purchasing power has fallen while the market is not buoyant. We still have a large unused capital. Some irrationalities remain in the investment structure. Investment is still overspread and has low efficiency. Change is slow in the sector of State enterprises. Underemployment is still sizeable. Social evils and crimes have shown complicated developments and tend to increase.

The above-said weaknesses are mainly due to the fact that the State administrative apparatus remains cumbersome and ineffective. Corruption, bureaucratism and authoritativeness have not been pushed back; the mechanism of macro policies and the guidance and management from the center to the grassroots still have many deficiencies. We must soon overcome these weaknesses to achieve better results in the year 2000.

II. OVERALL OBJECTIVE AND MAIN TARGETS OF THE YEAR 2000

Overall objective:

To strongly promote economic development at a higher rate than in 1999, to check the fall of the growth rate. To create a powerful change in efficiency and competitiveness of the economy, in the development of science and technology, in fostering manpower and settling of imperative social issues. To improve the material and cultural life of various strata of the population. To assure socio-political stability. To broaden external relations. To consolidate national defense and security.

Main targets:

1. Gross Domestic Product shall rise by 5.5% - 6%;

2. Value of agricultural production shall rise by 3.5% - 4%;

3. Food output in paddy equivalent shall reach 33.5 - 34 million tons;

4. Value of industrial production shall rise by 10.5% - 11%;

5. Value of services shall rise by 5% - 5.5%;

6. Total export value shall rise by 11% - 12%;

7. Inflation shall be kept at around 6%;

8. Budget deficit shall not exceed 5% of GDP;

9. Jobs shall be created for 1.2 million - 1.3 million working people;

10. Job training for 780,000 persons;

11. Rate of poor households shall be reduced to 11%;

12. Birth rate shall be reduced by 0.05%.

III. MAIN TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

1. To develop all resources, to remove difficulties and obstacles, to promote production and business.

a/ To continue to increase investment in agriculture and rural economy with priority given to water conservancy, plant seeds and livestock breeds of good quality and high productivity. To promote afforestation and regeneration of forests, to protect and plant new forests. To develop processing industries and the mechanical engineering industry in service of agriculture, to encourage the development of the cooperative economy in various forms, the household economy and the farm economy. To issue the mechanism and policies and to concentrate on guiding the good settlement of the consumption of commodity farm produce.

b/ To urgently consolidate and further broaden the right to autonomy and the right to self assumption of responsibility of the State enterprises aimed at raising the efficiency of production and business. To quickly promote the equitization, sale, assignment and lease of part of the State enterprises. To strongly develop the medium and small enterprises to draw a large labor force. To adopt policies to support those branches manufacturing competitive products, especially export products of large scale, such as crude oil, textiles and garments, leather shoes, farm products and aquatic products.

c/ To readjust the investment structure in order to raise the quality and competitiveness of the economy. To halt those investment projects with ineffective production and no prospect of capital recovery. To concentrate capital on key projects. To remove immediately the irrationalities in the investment and construction management regulation and the mechanism of bidding. To assign the localities to directly manage and organize the implementation of the national target programs. The ministries and branches at central level shall have to closely guide and control this process. To adopt policies to encourage all the economic sectors and the people to invest their idle capital in developing production. To urgently solve difficulties and obstacles in order to attract foreign direct investment. To make an overall review of the use of the Official Development Assistance fund; to accelerate the disbursement process and closely manage the use of this fund.

d/ To continue to exploit and expand the market, to give due attention to the domestic market, especially the rural areas. To promote export. To encourage and create conditions for the enterprises of all economic sectors to seek markets for direct export. To expand and diversify the forms of services and raise their quality. To resolutely fight smuggling and trade fraud.

e/ To attach special importance to development investment and the application of scientific and technological advances to production, especially biological technology and the technologies in processing farm, forest and marine products and the post-harvest technology. To raise the quality of evaluation and assessment of technologies, particularly the imported technologies and equipment. To intensify the management of the investments in science, technology and the environment and make their effective use.

f/ To organize the good implementation of the Resolution of the National Assembly on the State budget draft for the year 2000. To increase the initiative and to raise the role of responsibility in the management of finance and budget at various levels of local administration.

To continue to comprehensively reform and strengthen the banking system. To fully exercise autonomy and self-assumption of responsibility in the credit activities of the banks. To put an end to the issue of administrative orders to force the commercial banks to make loans. To perfect soon the organization and operations of the policy bank, to separate the preferential credits from commercial credits.

To renovate the mechanism of interest rates. To manage the exchange rates flexibly in conformity with demand and supply. To introduce a mechanism for capital generation in order to assist the settlement of overdue debts. To overcome the freezing of capital at commercial banks.

2. To effect a powerful change in cultural and social activities, to use effectively the State budget capital combined with socialization.

a/ To promote the activities in the domains of culture, education and sport. To associate training and use with the need of socio-economic development of the country and of each region.

To care for training children of ethnic minorities, of the mountain areas and other difficult areas. To apply the regime of selection- assignment according to the stipulations of the legislation on education. To adopt policies to encourage trainees to return and work for their native places.

To build and develop the clusters of population-culture.

To organize well the celebrations of major anniversaries in the year 2000.

b/ To step up the program of job settlement. To pay attention to developing the schools and other forms of job training associated with the broadening of the labor market.

To carry out well the policies toward persons with meritorious deeds for the revolution. To promote the movement of showing gratitude to persons who gave their lives, for the motherland. To care for and adopt policies toward the victims of Agent Orange during the war.

To take the initiative and deploy harmonious measures to prevent and handle in time the social evils, especially drug addiction, prostitution and trading of women and children. To step up the prevention and fight against the proliferation of HIV and AIDS.

c/ To raise the effect of health care for the population and carry out well the national medical program. To step up the diversification of the forms of medical examinations and treatment, to continue selling of health insurance cards and the reduction or exemption of hospital fees for the poor.

To bring down the rate of natural population growth, particularly where the birth rate is still high.

d/ To effectively carry out the program of socio-economic development in the communes with exceptionally difficult situation in the mountain areas, remote and deep-lying areas (known as Program 135). To integrate and eventually to unify the target programs in each area. In the immediate future, to unify the programs of creating centers of clusters of communes, sedentarization of residence and farming and assistance through Program 135 to the ethnic minorities who are living in exceptionally difficult conditions. To carry out well the program of sedentarization of residence and farming, to stabilize the life of the population in mountain areas and ethnic minorities.

3. To carry out wide open external relations, to raise the effect of external economic relations

On the basis of an independent and sovereign foreign policy, to promote the relations of friendship and cooperation with other countries, first of all the neighboring countries and countries in the region. To actively promote the talks on the border and territorial waters with concerned countries. To raise further the effect of external economic relations, to pay attention to the major markets and partners, to consolidate the regional and traditional markets. To continue negotiations to sign bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. To take the initiative in integrating with the regional and world economy. To heighten the position of Vietnam in the international arena.

4. To strengthen national defense and security

To permanently keep high vigilance, to take the initiative in checking and dealing in time and effectively with all complex situations that may arise. To continue to build up and raise the fighting strength of the armed forces, to defend independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, to firmly preserve political security and stability of the country. To promote the mass movement in defense of the security of the Motherland and social order and security. To mobilize the entire society to take part in the National Program of fighting against crimes. To associate the national defense and security task with socio-economic development. To develop the role of the armed forces in taking part in the prevention and fight against natural disasters and overcoming their consequences.

5. To step up the administrative reforms, to raise the effect of the activities of the State apparatus, the breakthrough to the successful realization of the tasks in the year 2000.

a/ The State managing agencies at all levels shall rearrange their apparatuses, reduce and strengthen their staff, improve guidance and management, ensure practicality, expeditiousness, resoluteness and effectiveness. To revise and readjust the assignment of responsibilities among the administrative levels in each domain, first of all between the central level and the provinces, devolve right away to the local levels whatever job possible. To pay importance to training, retraining and rationally assign officials and public employees. To heighten the sense of law observance and personal responsibility in the organization of the implementation of tasks. To detect in time and resolutely punish those State officials or employees in whatever position who show an attitude or take acts of harassing for bribes or cause inconvenience and troubles to the people.

b/ To increase the capabilities and raise the quality of the activities of the local administration in the new term of office, especially at the commune level. To fully exercise the powers and responsibilities of the People�s Councils at all levels, to democratically discuss and decide the affairs of the localities, first of all the tasks in the year 2000 and the orientation for the activities in the whole term.

c/ To step up the realization of the regulation on practice of democracy at the grassroots. Officials at all levels shall have to go regularly among the grassroots to have a firm grasp of the situation and listen with attention to the population, detect and deal in time with the arising questions. To strictly abide by the regime of the higher echelon making observations about the lower echelon and the lower echelon making criticism of the higher echelon.

To handle in time the citizens� complaints and denunciations. To concentrate on resolving definitively long overdrawn affairs.

d/ To revise, amend and supplement legal documents, organize the study and submit to the National Assembly for amendment of a number of articles of the 1992 Constitution on the organization of the State apparatus.

To raise the quality of investigation, supervision, trial and execution of verdicts.

To detect in time and handle promptly and seriously all kinds of crimes, especially corruption and smuggling.

e/ To issue in time documents guiding the implementation of the laws and ordinances adopted by the National Assembly and the Standing Committee of the National Assembly.

To intensify the popularization and education of law among the people.

6. To concentrate on overcoming the consequences of floods in Central Vietnam, to take measures in full initiative for timely prevention and fight against national disasters in the whole country

a/ To make preferential investment in restoring and strengthening the socio-economic infrastructure with special attention to water conservancy, communication, electric works, schools and medical establishments, to conduct environmental hygiene and to handle the farm soil filled up by flood or immersed by salt water.

b/ Let the population in Central Vietnam heighten their sense of initiative in overcoming difficulties in order to early stabilize life and production. To develop the sense of mutual aid and mutual love of the entire people including overseas Vietnamese, to turn to full account the assistance of other countries and international organizations for the population in the flood stricken areas.

c/ To review and draw the necessary lessons in the prevention and fight against natural disasters and overcoming their sequels in 1999, on which basis to elaborate plans to raise the capacity of forecast, ensure technical means and material conditions in order to stand ready to cope with all contingencies during natural disasters.

The National Assembly calls on the people and armed forces in the whole country and compatriots living abroad to develop the tradition of solidarity, hard working and creativeness, step up the patriotic emulation movement, and strive to successfully carry out the tasks for the year 2000, a year of paramount importance, in order to advance the country into the new millenium.

This Resolution was passed by the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Xth Legislature, 6th Session, on December 21, 1999.

Chairman of the National Assembly
NONG DUC MANH